Prepare to install GSPS

We recommend using a service account for GSPS authentication. To use a service account, you must be planning to install GSPS 1.6 or later. For more information on authentication methods for GSPS, see Choose your Google authentication method.

To do this, you need to set the Additional User Attributes > Synchronize Passwords setting in GCDS to Only for new users. Otherwise, passwords may become out of sync when you run GCDS. For details, see Additional user attributes.

Specify your primary Google domain and your Admin Email Address. This is the email address of the administrator that GSPS will use to perform the password updates. The administrator's address also appears in the audit logs in the Admin console.

Important: Make sure that this administrator has signed into the Google Admin console and accepted the terms of service before you continue.

You should see "Authorization has been granted successfully. Please switch to your application."

Close your browser and return to GSPS. The Status value should change to Authorized.

Note: If the GSPS screen doesn't display Authorized, authorization has failed and you should refer to the error message at the bottom of the GSPS configuration screen. Authorization can fail for a number of reasons, typically:

The user isn't a super administrator for your Google domain.

The time and time zone on your server aren't set correctly.

Click Next.

Select the authorization access method for GSPS to use to query Active Directory. The options available are described below.

Authorization access method

Description

Application’s Security Context

This is the default and recommended setting.The GSPS service runs in the security context of the NetworkService account, not a user account.

This is the only option supported on Server Core domain controllers or when you configure GSPS from the command line.

User Credentials

The authorized user that GSPS acts on behalf of. The user doesn't have to be a domain administrator. But, it can be a role account with the following permissions: List Contents, Read All Properties, and Read Permissions applied to "This object and all child objects."

This user will only be used to get the email addresses of users from Active Directory. Therefore, it must have access to read the mail attribute for all the users whose passwords you want to sync.

Enter the Base distinguished name (DN). When you configure GSPS for the first time, your Active Directory domain's default base DN is detected and added here. You can edit it, if required.

If you're using GCDS, this setting is usually identical to the GCDS Base DN setting.

Enter the Mail Attribute. This is your Active Directory domain's mail attribute that contains each user's Google email address. In most cases, this attribute is “mail.” The values stored here must exactly match the Google email address, including the domain part of the address.

If you're using the Replace domain names in LDAP email addresses option in GCDS, it may not be "mail." Therefore, make sure you use an attribute that matches the email address in Google.

Click Next. The application tests the connection settings you provided and alerts you if there are any errors. Review for any error messages. The Summary screen should show the configuration is saved and the service is running.

Click Finish.

Repeat this section for each of the domain controllers in your domain.

GSPS is now installed and running. Any password changes made to a user's Active Directory account are automatically updated for your Google users as well. However, GSPS doesn't sync your existing Active Directory passwords to Google–it only syncs password changes.

Be sure to instruct your users to change their Active Directory password (as described in step 8) to sync the password their to Google Account.

Complete and maintain

GSPS won't sync an Active Directory password with a Google Account until it's changed. Therefore, you need to have your users change their Active Directory passwords to complete the sync process. We recommend that you prompt your Active Directory users to change their password the next time they sign in.

When adding new users, we recommend following this workflow:

In Active Directory, create the new user with an initial generic password and check the User must change password at next logon box.

Run GCDS to provision the user in your Google domain.

Have the user sign in and change the initial password. GSPS syncs the new password with the Google Account within a few minutes.